Grand Canyon Times

What the voter integrity group Lawyers Democracy Fund (LDF) describes as a “dangerous” initiative that would have removed voter safeguards has been stricken from the Nov. 8 ballot by the state’s Supreme Court.

LDF Executive Director Lisa Dixon said that the Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections Initiative would have replaced the safeguards in state law with “H.R. 1-style policies.” H.R. 1, now languishing in the U.S. Senate, would give the federal government control over the state’s elections procedures. It's opposed by the Honest Elections Project, the Election Transparency Initiative, and other election integrity groups.

“This initiative would have repealed several of Arizona’s important election safeguards and changed Arizona elections for the worse,” Dixon told the Grand Canyon Times in an email. “Lawyers Democracy Fund was honored to work with a coalition of organizations that support election integrity to bring this challenge and demonstrate to the court the invalidity of hundreds of thousands of petitions.”

Lisa Dixon | Provided

Among other changes to the law, the initiative would have eliminated voter ID requirements for in-person voting, banned the need to prove citizenship to register to vote, allowed election officials to take private money to underwrite the cost of administering elections, encourage curbside voting.

The Supreme Court ruled Aug. 29 that the initiative failed to garner the 237,645 signatures needed for the November ballot after the Arizonans for Free Enterprise Club challenged the signatures, charging that more than half of the signatures were gathered illegally.

Scot Mussi, president of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, released a statement after the ruling saying that “this radical initiative imported 60 different provisions from Washington, D.C. that would have increased fraud, harmed small business, and empowered special interests. They spent over $7 million trying to buy their way onto the ballot, and they failed.”

Dixon explained that initially the Supreme Court remanded the case back to the trial court to conduct a final review of the signatures, and the trial court held that the initiative actually did qualify for the ballot by 4,000 signatures. But when the High Court asked the lower court to verify its calculations, the lower court changed its prior ruling and held the initiative failed to qualify by 1,458 signatures.

“This is a monumental win for election integrity in Arizona and the rights of voters to have their elections conducted in a manner that protects the vote of every eligible voter,” she said.

Over the past year, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, has signed legislation requiring proof of citizenship to vote, tightening the law covering mail ballots, and banning election officials from accepting private funds to underwrite the cost of election management.